Emissions Interview with Proko

Emissions Music Festival is coming up next month and we got the chance to interview Troy Prokopowich, also known as Proko. His music falls into the Bass genre but also takes elements of Trap and Dubstep into his tracks. For Emissions, you can expect Proko to blast bass waves through your skulls. He has recently collabed with Bleep Bloop and many more artists. Look out for this newcomer when you attend Emissions 2016.

1) Can you give a brief description about yourself and what kind of music you create?

Well my name is Troy. I’m really into synthesizers, music and sound in general. I love coffee….. a lot lol.

As far as what kind of music I make. That’s a really hard thing for me to define.

Bass music I think is easiest way to define it.

I aspire to make fresh sounds and kinda push outside of the norm without being “weird” just for the sake of being weird.

I would say I try to combine heavy sounds and BIG vibes like Trap and Dubstep, but I like to emphasize the out there kinda psychedelic sounds. I pull some hiphop elements to my sound as well.

Most of my sound design is done with hardware synthesizers and out-board gear.. I’m really into tone, so I try and focus on that in my music as a huge priority

2) What made you pursue music and how long have you been making music?

I think having my dad as a musician really made me want to pursue music from an early age

I got into music around 7 years old.

My grandma actually bought me my first bass guitar at that age.

My dad was also a bassist and I leaned a lot from him.

Since then I’ve learned to play many instruments from drums to cello. The only thing I never nailed down was winds.

I would say I’ve been writing music of my own since I was like 10.

I played in punk bands for my teenage years, as well as in prog rock bands and such, mostly guitar.

When I was about 13 I got Fruitlyloops and started messing around with it and really got more interested in dance music around 16 or 17. That’s when I got ableton and dubstep was coming to the US, it was like 2008. It all kinda clicked for me then.

3) What are some artists you listen to and who are some of your favorite artists?

I listen to alot of King Crimson which is a progressive rock band that has been really pushing the boundaries of sound since the 70’s.

I listen to punk rock a good amount still.

As far as electronic music, I listen to alot of music in my peer group like SAYER , Bleep Bloop, Zeke Beats, G Jones etc.. these guys are always pushing the forefront of new sound in bass music. I really vibe with old UK style dubstep 2

Fav Artist:

EPROM , Nasty Nasty , Ivylab and Joker just to name a few

4) Loved that “Disk Error” track with Bleep Bloop, are there any other artists you are currently collabing with or would like to in the near future?

Yea im really trying to reach out and collaborate alot with this project.

I currently have a collab with SAYER , Space Jesus , SMKSGNLS and another with Bleep Bloop. I Also have few others that are in the works that I’m really excited about.

As far as more future collabs……… I mean a dream would be to make music with EPROM or Noisia

5) For Emissions Music Festival, what can we expect from a live set by you? Any visuals, pyrotechnics or anything else along those lines ?

I perform with CDJ’s so i cant promise any fancy Ableton synced finger drumming or things of that sort.

But what I can promise are clean mixed BIG tunes with lots of energy and trippy sounds.

?Camp Q? always has killer stage design so I’m sure there will be tons of cool stuff to look at while I’m blasting bass waves thru ur skull.

6) Finally, it says in your bio you are a big fan of Nintendo, what’s your favorite Nintendo videogame?

I FUK WIT NINTENDO.

But really I’m like borderline obsessed with The Legend Of zelda. Rn I have everything from from n64 titles to modern day with the zelda series. I really like the classics I’ve beat Supermario World for SNES like 2 times in the last year. also all the donkey kong series for SNES I have run thru this year as well.